Medieval economics: Warmongering merchants and the real-life geoeconomics of 'Ponniyin Selvan'

The alliance of a state and a merchant corporation to extract resources and explode onto the global stage was pioneered in India half a millennium before the East India company even existed.

Perhaps no medieval Indian dynasty captures our imaginations as much as the Cholas today.  Their imposing monuments, sensuous bronzes and spectacular military successes have been the subjects of copious amounts of historical research, fiction, and media for at least a century, and they are finally reaching the national centre-stage with the success of Mani Ratnam’s adaptation of Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan. But how, precisely, did the Cholas manage to do all this with the resources and technology of the 10th and 11th centuries CE?

Beneath the imperial grandeur and mystique were precarious financial imperatives, forces of supply and demand, and a close alliance between mercantile, political and military interests. In many ways, the drivers of Chola expansion overseas were a merchant corporation known as the Nanadesi-Tisai-Ayiratta-Ainnurruvar: the Five Hundred of the Thousand Directions in All Countries (hereafter “Five Hundred”). With a history nearly thrice as long as that of the East India Company, this extraordinary medieval organisation has nevertheless been forgotten today. As we explore their activities in this first edition of Medieval Economics, we’ll begin to see the Cholas in a new light.

Merchants and kings

The activities of the Five Hundred in the deep south of India begin in the 9th century CE, in the Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu. Pudukkottai a crossroads—located near the Palghat gap in the Western Ghats as well as between the valleys of the Kaveri and Vaigai rivers. In the 9th century, all of these were major political and agrarian centres and were ruled over by warlike elites: the Cheras in present-day Kerala, the Cholas in the Kaveri river valley, and the Pandyas in that of the Vaigai.

Meera Abraham, in Two Medieval Merchant Guilds of South India, notes that though the Five Hundred claimed to have originated in northern Karnataka, this Tamil “franchise” of the corporation was probably set up by landlords tied to the local Irrukkuvel dynasty, seeking to engage in long-distance trade. The connection to minor royalty would soon become a game-changer. The Irrukkuvels allied with the Chola dynasty against the Pandyas; by the late 10th century, the latter were finally overpowered by Rajaraja I (r. 985–1014 CE). (This Chola king, albeit before his coronation, is an important character in Ponniyin Selvan). Thanks in part due to these changed circumstances, the Tamil branch of the Five Hundred also came to the attention of the warlike, expansionist Chola monarch.

Around this time, the Culavamsa—a medieval Pali text from Lanka—claims that a Tamil horse merchant informed Rajaraja of a mutiny of South Indian mercenaries serving as the bodyguards of the king of Lanka. This incident is highly revealing, as it suggests that merchants had the ears of rulers and that they saw war as mutually profitable. Though previous Tamil dynasties had raided Lanka, Rajaraja’s approach was far more ambitious: landing at the ancient port of Mahatittha (Mantota) in northwest Lanka, his army proceeded inland to the capital of Anuradhapura “while oppressing the mass of the inhabitants” (Chapter 55 verse 16). There, and elsewhere in Lanka, the Culavamsa claims that the Cholas “broke open the relic chambers [of stupas] and carried away many costly images of gold, violently destroyed here and there all the monasteries, and took all the treasures of Lanka for themselves” (Chapter 55 verses 20–22). This historical Lankan chronicle presents a much darker picture of Rajaraja’s expansion than the original Ponniyin Selvan.

Such violence was not, however, completely mindless. In The Politics of Expansion: The Chola Conquest of Sri Lanka and Sri Vijaya, historian George Spencer argues that military successes provided the Cholas with both political and economic capital. These were used to overawe and assimilate local chiefs, tribal groups, and autonomous assemblies of landlords and Brahmins in the Kaveri river valley. But there is also evidence of a grander purpose to Rajaraja’s attack on Lanka. The Gulf of Mannar, where the Chola armies alighted, had rich pearl fisheries. And as Rajaraja consolidated his grip over the island, mentions of Tamil merchants begin to appear in their immediate aftermath.

Growing International Ambitions

After the sack of Anuradhapura, the Cholas established a Lankan capital at Polonnoruwa, located in the valley of the Mahavali river, which flows into the Indian Ocean at Trincomalee in northeast Sri Lanka. The Five Hundred were active in Polonnoruwa, and a high concentration of Chola period inscriptions can also be found at Trincomalee. These very strongly suggest that the conquest was intended to also seize Lanka’s commercial infrastructure for the Five Hundred, allied to Chola interests.

Both royals and merchants stood to gain from such cooperation. On the one hand, merchants alone could not rally manpower from villages and direct them in war—a task to which medieval Indian royals, who trained in military affairs from childhood, were well suited. On the other, faced with a multiplicity of local power centres with varying willingness to pay tax, gifts from grateful merchants offered crucial liquidity to royals. As noted above, merchants could also provide information on changing international political and economic situations, aided by their itinerant lifestyle and the fact that they often came from very diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds.

Indeed, Rajaraja Chola's alliance with the Five Hundred was a response not only to the crisis in Lanka, but also to improving commercial conditions in the Indian Ocean. With the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate at Cairo in 973 CE, trade through the Western Indian Ocean and the Red Sea was rising. The Song dynasty of China also sent out diplomatic missions inviting trade from across the Eastern Indian Ocean in 987, just two years after Rajaraja’s coronation. The presence of two wealthy, populous agrarian empires on either end of the ocean created an enormous demand for South Asian goods. It also generated opportunities for the exchange of goods between Egypt and China—for which Lanka, particularly the port of Mahatittha which the Cholas had conquered—was a crucial entrepot and transshipment hub. The conquest of the region was thus rooted in calculations of both geopolitics and political economy.

After Rajaraja I’s conquest of Lanka and the takeover of its trade infrastructure, he invested a group of merchants with ambassadorial authority and sent them to China. After a three-year journey, they presented to the Song court 21,000 ounces of pearls on the Cholas’ behalf. And on their own account, they also presented 6,600 ounces of pearls. Highly impressed, the Song emperor ordered them treated with great regard and invited them to his birthday celebrations, sending them back with an imperial edict and rich gifts. Clearly, the conquest of Mannar and Lanka was a stepping stone for the growing ambitions of the Cholas and their merchant partners.

The alliance of a state and a merchant corporation to extract resources and explode onto the global stage was pioneered in India half a millennium before the East India company even existed. We’ll explore the most spectacular example of this—the seafaring conquests of Rajendra Chola—in the next edition of Medieval Economics.